


grotesque and questionable / ontological status

by verulams (finnlogan)



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Brainwashing, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Conditioning, Not Beta Read, Only MILDLY Endgame compliant, POV Bucky Barnes, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony survives endgame, Touching, Whump, Winter Soldier Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:00:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23655007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finnlogan/pseuds/verulams
Summary: Tony's memories are shot through with contradictions. Now, they're shot through with a different life. A different world. A harder world, somehow. God knew how that was even possible. Bucky's gotta fix it. Buckyneedsto fix it."Do you remember?"Thoroughly inspired by and borrowing from@ambivalentangst'swork,cycle through, which you'll probably need to read to understand this one, and which you should probably read anyway.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Tony Stark
Comments: 8
Kudos: 52





	grotesque and questionable / ontological status

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [cycle through](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23501851) by [ambivalentangst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambivalentangst/pseuds/ambivalentangst). 



> Did I just write a remix of a (really good) angst heavy fic where my Deus Ex Machina is the _power of touch?_
> 
> **Hell yeah, I did.**

If they were outside, they would've seen it. If they'd been closer to a window, they would've seen it too. But they're not, and in _every_ _given_ universe, they weren't, either.

Instead, a flash of light hits the sky as two universes collide, the fabric of it crumpling and crushing together like velvet and silk. It condenses on one man.

Tony Stark blinks, and it starts immediately.

***

"We were designed," Tony says it as if they weren't in the middle of a fight. He looks off to the side of the room, distracted.

They'd been sparring. It had been _normal._ It was the first time they'd been… Bucky dismisses the thought. Didn't matter.

It doesn't even strike him as odd, not right then. He's just missed a sentence or something. Gotten too caught up in the flow of the movements.

"What?" He asks, smiling and pointing to his ear.

Tony glares at him now, mouth a tight line. "We were _built._ We were always, _always_ meant to be like this."

Bucky's smile dies on his face, and Tony looks crazed. Something's not right, Bucky can tell, could feel it in the damn _air_ , probably, could feel it in the vibrations of Tony's shuffling feet. He's missed something.

"Tony, what are you talking about?"

A pause, and Tony's blinking back tears, eyes shining and teeth almost ripping at his bottom lip. "You- you don't remember it?"

"...No." What else even was there to _say?_ They'd made so much progress with each other after… after. They'd tried hard, Tony with his shiny new metal arm and his scarred face, and Bucky had worked for it, too. He hadn't always _liked_ Tony, but he'd undoubtedly come around somewhat since… Since.

Tony looks up at him, and his eyes are vast, and his body is twisted. "I don't know about you, Barnes, but I don't think there's a single universe in which we get out of here alive."

"Tony," he says, and the sheer _incoherency_ of it gnaws at his bones. The guy had faced _Thanos_ , wielded the _infinity stones._ It was a miracle that he'd had enough of a body to stitch back together at all. Definitely, a miracle he'd come out of it with only a missing arm. His nerves flip in his gut. "I have no idea what the fuck you're _talking_ about."

" _We were built to die, Barnes, we were built to be-"_ he spits, " _We were built to be cannon fodder!"_ It looks like it tastes sour on his mouth. Tony grimaces.

"Tony," Bucky takes a step back, holding his arms out in a way he hopes to god is placating. "Are you okay?"

Seems a silly question, really, because Tony's clutching at his face. The tendons are showing through the skin of his hands.

" _No, I'm not,"_ he howls.

Tension snaps, tight and coiled around the room. Stepping back again, Bucky's nerves crack when his shoes make a tiny squeak on the floor.

Tony stands to attention. Bucky's not sure he's ever done that in his life. "Never rewarded for a job well done, are we, Barnes?"

Bucky hesitates. Dread trickles up his spine. "What-?"

" _Soldiers are never rewarded for a job well done."_

Bucky blinks and with a whip-sharp crack, with a body poised, Tony Stark-

Tony Stark goes for his neck.

Bucky responds instinctively.

There's nothing but this moment, where Stark extends his metal hand, and a snarl warps his face, Bucky catalogues the milliseconds as points in time. He jets out his own arm, logical, forcing it to rest in the air where-

Bucky catalogues the micro-movements, where Stark doesn't know his own weight, where the metal arm _wrenches_ at the casing but he keeps going anyway even though it must hurt, and Bucky registers that as a shock before-

Before the arm makes contact with his neck.

Bucky's arm is already at Tony's.

Tony is _crying._

Bucky says nothing at all.

***

["Can't _._ "

"Or won't?"

Tony spits blood. "Both," he pants. "Or neither."

"Neither, then," says Pierce, and it carries on.]

***

Bucky hauls Tony- who he'd been trying _so hard_ to get on with- onto his shoulder.

He's heavier than he used to be, metal arm a hanging weight. It's like a pendulum, almost, Bucky thinks absently. It's like one of those science gizmos that Tony had on his desk, where the metal spheres would _pound_ into one another so that the other side lifted.

Something about the process, something about the click-clack of metal on metal, feels terrible to him. Feels like a flinch, a cringe, or a hesitation.

He doesn't think about-

He _doesn't_ think about 'soldiers are never rewarded for a job well done.'

He doesn't think about the way it crunches at his ribcage, at the myoelectric tendons that fused the metal arm with his chest. He doesn't think about the way Tony Stark, the saviour of the universe and infinitely fragile, had just collapsed.

He sighs and walks down to the medical bay.

***

[ _Gilded, revolution, two._ ]

***

Tony is babbling again.

It's only ever with Bucky.

"You were _gone,_ " he roars. "You fucking _asshole,_ escaping and leaving me to _rot,_ leaving me to-"

Lights seem to flash in his eyes.

" _Leaving me to kill for them!"_

Bucky sighs, standing up. He's doing more harm than good, here.

***

[ _Exchange, titanium, nineteen._ ]

***

Bucky sits next to Pepper for the meeting with Helen. He's horribly out of place. He's out of place next to Pepper, with her bright white suit and her deliberate demeanour. He's out of place next to the plastic pot plants, and he's _definitely_ out of place with the room in general.

These were people who _knew_ Stark, really knew him.

Bucky's here because they're convinced he's some kind of missing link. They don't think he's done anything to Tony, they say. He knows they only think that because they'd seen the cam footage. But it puts him in the clear nonetheless, so he's happy.

Well. He's not _happy,_ because Bucky's somehow gone and fucked up the brain of the biggest and bravest genius on the planet, and that's _after_ he's saved the universe.

"So," Helen says. "We have seen… _some_ improvement."

Those words are chosen, Bucky knows it. He's not improving, not really. He only seems better because Bucky has given up trying to talk to him and figure it out. He's done more harm than good.

Pepper frowns. He notices out of the corner of his eye that she's tapping her fingers against each other. He recognises the pattern of it as a Tony thing. "In his vitals?"

Helen nods, holding up a sheet, and passing it to her. The paper seems to show the erratic heartbeat he'd been showing ease-out, just a little. To Bucky, it looks a bit healthier than he'd seen in a while. Pepper frowns harder. It creases up her forehead, and her mouth turns down at the corners. "And his… memories?" She asks.

She knows the answer. They all do.

"...No improvement as of yet, no."

Pepper crosses her arms and sighs, sitting back in the chair. They're uncomfortable chairs, the kind Bucky always seemed to end up sitting on when he came for a meeting with Tony. Like when Tony used to-

Tony used to work on his arm. He swallows.

"Barnes?" Pepper asks. She was always brusque with him, and Tony had always been kinder to him than she was. With good reason, probably, but he stamps down on the thought before he can finish it. Never good to dwell on that shit. What mattered was Tony.

"Yes?" He mumbles, after a moment. He fixes his eyes on the paper and tries hard to pretend he's not cataloguing the facial expressions of the people around him.

"Have you seen him?" She asks.

"Not since last time," his eyes are still fixed tight on the erratic heartbeat.

Pepper seems to dislike that, and he can faintly hear her grind her teeth.

"We could try again." She says, and it's a statement, not a question.

Bucky sighs, and they both stare at him. "Yeah," he mutters. "We could."

***

[ _Seven, rise, trinket, conductor._ ]

***

They don't tell Morgan, mainly because she's too young. Pepper covers it up, apparently. Daddy's gone away, or something. He's not sure, though. Just as long as she wasn't made aware of- the whole mess, where her Dad's brain has somehow been replaced with-

Replaced with something else.

***

"Hey," he mutters.

Pepper and Helen don't come into the room with him. They sit in the office around the back, watching through cameras.

"Hey," comes the cold reply. Bucky's still halfway across the room, but that sounded almost... normal.

He stops. Hesitates. "Tony?"

"...Yes?"

He walks over, step after step, calm and collected and as poised as he can manage. He pulls apart the curtains that hang around the hospital bed.

There's Tony, frail-ish and prone-ish. Though really, he only looked frail because he was pale and sweaty. And he only looked prone, because-

"That's new," Bucky growls.

There are _manacles_. Restraints. Bucky wheels around and glares at the tiny cameras he knows are in the corner. He hopes to god they can see him.

When he turns around, Tony blinks at him. His face is blank, other than a tiny crease between his brows that speaks infinities about his confusion.

Tony doesn't say anything.

Unusual, even these days. Tony, when he was alert, was never _quiet._

"...Tony?"

Tony says nothing, but his eyes drop to the ground as Bucky approaches. Not insolent, but… _deferential._

Bucky blinks and scowls. Deference sits all wrong on Tony Stark's face. Never looked right when he was spilling garbage about a life that never happened from his mouth. It definitely never looked right when he wouldn't meet Bucky's eyes.

It sits so wrong, and Bucky's not here to have a conversation with a corpse. He's here to have a conversation with _Tony._ So he says: "What's your problem?"

And suddenly-

Sharp, to attention. Tony's head tips up, neck exposed. His mouth is pressed shut with such a force that it must hurt. His eyes still sit downwards, pointing to the floor.

" _Tony._ " He says. More force, this time. Maybe that'd break through this-

Tony flinches, just a little, only minimally. But Bucky can see it. Bucky can see it because he knows where to look.

He doesn't flinch with his head.

He _doesn't flinch with his head._

Tony flinches with his body, head as still as he can make it.

"Tony…"

And the softness of it, something must click.

Something must.

Tony looks up. Tony Stark looks up at him, brown eyes glazed like it was hurricane season and the world was shot through with haze. Tony Stark looks up at him, and he croaks:

"Winter?"

Bucky staggers back. As if he's been shot. He feels the hit of the word like a wound, like someone's ripped metal from his flesh.

Processing, buffering, sorting through his memories, trying desperately to recall if this was even _possible and if it could even be real,_ and maybe _Bucky_ is the one going mad right now because he can't fuckin' figure this _out._

***

[It drips like aid. It drips like _god,_ Tony thinks. Or not. He’s not Tony, now, is he?

Pierce laughs. No, he thinks. Not Tony, not now.]

***

By the time he looks back up again, Tony's eyes have dropped to the ground.

It's aggravating.

He steps up to the bed. He-

Soldiers weren't _touched._ Not really. They were grabbed. They were manipulated, cast-iron-wrought and built of aggression. And he remembers how he was snapped out of it, like a conditioned dog, something Pavlovian about the way he got used to being human again.

Soldiers weren't touched, _never_ touched.

So Bucky reaches out a hand, and he reaches it out so softly, so gently, and-

He pauses.

Tony's shaking in his restraints. His eyes are bloodshot, trained on the ground. He looks like-

He looks like he'd stop Bucky if he could. Looks like he'd kill him. If he could.

***

[Something trickles away. Again, he thinks. Something trickles away, _again._ ]

***

Bucky's not the one to figure it out, which comes as no surprise. Banner is. Something about interdimensional fallout. The universe had decided that Tony Stark should get the memories of _some other_ Tony Stark.

He doesn't care, not really. What mattered is that Tony was-

He wasn't mad, not insane; He was real. He was _so_ real, in the same way Bucky was.

It was all about the memories.

Bucky looks at Tony, and Tony won't look back.

It was all about the memories.

They don't try and unpiece it. Bucky doesn't remember there being Tony, doesn't remember the muzzle he sometimes muttered about, doesn't remember a universe where he has a past even remotely similar to Tony Stark. He doesn't try.

***

Bucky doesn't try it again, not yet. He waits to try and touch Tony Stark again. If Bucky was right, then Tony knew the weight of that arm, now. And if Bucky was correct, then it would be a dangerous mistake to make. They haven't removed the restraints, but- that metal arm.

Bucky knows what those things can do.

***

It had started off easier if anything. Things seem to get worse. At the start, it was just with Bucky. And then it was all the time.

He swallows, staring down at Tony's face.

Even with Pepper, now. Even with Pepper.

Maybe-

Maybe Steve would've been able to fix him, fix him like he and Sam did Bucky. But-

The thought is bitter. Doesn't matter.

He heaves a breath. "Tony, I don't know if you can even understand what I'm saying right now, but I need an…" he grasps in his mind for something to say, anything. He chokes out a hollow laugh. "I need an arm upgrade, pretty soon. The damn thing is, uh. Broken."

It's not, of course, Tony had been like this a month, and the arm had been fixed more than 6 months ago, and it was still okay.

Of _course_ , it was still okay.

Tony blinks. He makes a noise, then seems to think better of it. He shuts up.

It's the same process, every time, and there's only so much _talking_ that Bucky can do.

"Hey, Tony," he breathes and raises his hand. His flesh one. He waves, grins, and Tony cracks a shadow of a smile before staring right back down at the floor.

…Aggravating.

"What's your name?"

This time, Tony looks at him directly. A direct question needed, then. He doesn't respond, and Bucky has to figure out-

Was it worth it? To pretend to be a fucking _handler,_ of all things, to try and get him to talk?

...Was it worth it?

He thinks of Pepper. He thinks of all the damn kids that Tony had somehow collected. He thinks of James Rhodes. He thinks of Pepper, again.

"Come on, Tony," he mutters. "Don't make me do this."

Tony stares at the ground.

"Stark," he almost _begs,_ he feels it catapult from him in desperation.

***

On a different day, an earlier one, before he'd lost track of this universe completely, Tony talks to Pepper. He asks if she's okay. Bucky knows because he watches the footage back. They all do.

"I- I'm fine, Tony. Are _you?"_

"I'm losin' it, Pep," he murmurs, blank hurricane-eyes swirling. "Whichever me this happened to probably needs an assload of therapy," he flops his head back against the pillow and then rattles his hands against the restraints. "What're these for?"

"Ah," Pepper mumbles. "You've been… difficult."

"Ah," Tony repeats. "Figures."

***

_"Stark._ " He tries it once more, hoping desperately that maybe the 's' of it, maybe the _sound_ , the _tone,_ that would be enough-

Tony Stark stares at the floor.

Bucky bites his lips.

"You'll look at me when I talk to you," he tries.

Tony looks up at him then and _sneers,_ a snarl wiped across his face. He says nothing, but there's a rumble in his throat. Aggravating, still, because Tony was a lot of things, but he was _never_ quiet.

" _Soldier."_ Bucky barks then cringes. "You'll _look at me when I talk to you._ "

Tony snarls again, mouth open but jaw tight, sharply cast as if he was-

As if he was built that way.

" _Soldier, don't give me that shit."_ He _spits_ it, and the aggression at the injustice of it all seeps into his voice. " _What is your name?"_

He snaps to attention. "I am the Iron Soldier, sir." He grits out. Pained.

Bucky, not for the first time, recoils as if he's been punched.

***

"We need to find a way to help him."

Helen and Pepper swing around to stare at him. Pepper frowns. She does that a lot. "We've been trying."

"No," Bucky says. "You've been trying to _stop_ it. If we can- if we can-!"

"Barnes," she says, and her voice is softer than it should be for the situation, certainly softer than it's ever been before. "We've tried everything we can so far…"

Bucky shakes his head. "I don't- I don't mean fuckin'- parallel universe stuff. I mean…"

He trails off.

"What do you mean?" Helen asks. It sounds careful on her tongue. Pepper's mouth sits in a tight line across her face.

"We could try-"

Bucky looks at the ground.

"I think I need to fight him, or- or-" he backpedals when Pepper tenses, "I think I just need to get him to touch me."

***

Undoing the restraints feels kinda like how he guesses he'd feel if he was standing in front of a tranquilised tiger.

There was no _physical_ risk. Not to Bucky, not really. But it was like standing in front of an endangered species. If it went wrong, if any of it did, then this could be… difficult.

There is only Tony and Bucky. The doors are closed. This was it.

He heaves a breath. This was it.

"Tony," he says, as the manacles clink on the side of the hospital bed. "How are you feeling?"

Tony rubs at his wrists and blinks. He looks up, briefly, a split-shock of a second where Bucky realises again that this Tony was-

 _This_ Tony had those memories.

Tony doesn't look down, this time. They make eye contact, and with the hurricane-eyes sitting in Tony Stark's eye sockets, it seems like it singes his skin.

"Tony," he whispers. Careful. "We haven't been able to get more than _two_ words out of you in a week."

Tony breathes through his mouth, ragged breaths and wild eyes. He speaks through gritted teeth. "You _left_."

He holds out a hand. It's meant to placate, not to aggravate, but Tony's body twists as he sits up. "Tony, if you can remember that I left, then-"

" _You left me to kill for them!"_ Which is more than three words, and therefore an improvement no matter what happens from here.

Bucky inhales, then exhales. Forms his body into a sharp, upright figure, watch as Tony drops his eyes to the ground, watches as his aggression levels tick up at the authority, at the _imposition_ of authority-

Bucky frowns, his mouth tearing open in something like a snarl. " _If you can remember that I left, then you can remember this."_

Bucky reaches out his hand- his flesh one. He reaches out his hand, and Tony does too, rearing upwards and landing on unsteady feet, but Bucky doesn't help his wobbly posture. It would be dangerous to do so now, when-

When-

Bucky blinks, and Tony goes for his neck. Bucky reaches for Tony's face.

They collide at the same moment. Tony's hand is a vice on his neck, an alligator with jaws the size of a truck, the size of the _moon,_ and Bucky tries desperately to reach his face without _hurting_ him, but-

He can't. There was never a way to do this kindly, not with either of them.

So Bucky _forcibly_ pries the metal fingers from his face with his own, and the colours of them in the medbay's light is abruptly alien to him. Tony screeches because with the myoelectric interface they both used it _hurts_ to pull it that way, and he balls the fingers of his other hand into a fist, and-

Dodging, just a little, Bucky catches the hand.

Simply. Easily. Calmly.

Tony doesn't drop to the floor, but he may as well. He sags, dripping down in trickles like he's been shot, like _he's_ been punched.

Either way, it's flesh on flesh. It's enough.

***

If they were outside, they would've seen it. If they'd been closer to a window, they would've seen it too. But they're not, and in _every_ given universe, they weren't, either.

Instead, there is a flash of light in the sky as two universes wrench apart, the fabric of it all tearing and extending, elasticated.

Tony Stark blinks, and it ends as quickly as it had begun.

***

The hurricane-eyes clear, just a little. They wax a little brighter, wane a little less- mad. A little more present.

Tony seems to notice his return to this universe. He tries to draw himself up, but his muscles are failing and his body lax. Bucky grips hold of him, balancing him from under his arms.

"Hey, Tony."

"Hey, Barnes," and it's soft and calm and easy. "Jesus," he murmurs. "That was… a lot, huh? That was scientifically speaking, a huge fuckin SNAFU. I'm _not_ interested in repeating that, thank you, no more parallel universe me's with different lives, thanks, _not for me._ "

Startling, almost, the way it works. Tony switches from off to on, and it's like it never happened.

Bucky hesitates. Just for a second. But looking at Tony, with his clearer eyes and his scarred face, his body wrapped around Bucky's arms where he holds him up, and it's…

"Do you remember?" He mutters.

Tony looks at him with eyes that had been someone else's, not minutes ago. "Yeah," he says.

Bucky hugs him, immediately, reflexively, like he'd never been conditioned out of it. Like they'd never tried to kill each other. Like they'd never tried to kill each other _multiple_ times. Like the sun was setting on a stormy day.

Maybe tomorrow, he thinks, the sun will rise, and it'll be better. Maybe tomorrow would sit easier on the front of his grit-teeth-jaw. Maybe tomorrow they'd even talk about… he falters and breathes a deep sigh out of his mouth. Maybe tomorrow they'd even talk about it.

Slowly, Tony hugs back. “Yeah,” he breathes. “I remember.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr [here](https://finnlogan.tumblr.com), or[ here ](https://verulamfic.tumblr.com) where I am taking fic requests!


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